Thankfully, ggn's anti-spam hack has been authored as a mod by Derek Barnstorm, and Dandello has included it in her development of YaBB 2.5.4 (see that in action here at her test bed site - on the 2nd page of her registration page).

However, because you already have Derek Barnstorm's Anti-Spam Question mod working for you, I think if you do what other admins have done with it, you may be able to stop all spam-bot registrations as well.

In other words, instead of using the questions that come with that mod, which spam-bot automation can answer, you can instead use one simple question that's easy to answer, and yet, virtually impossible for spam-bots to figure out.

Suggestion: Ask the question, "In the User Agreement below, what is the 3rd word of the agreement?" People can easily see that starts with an "a" and so forth, which is what they'll type for the answer.

Keep in mind that if or when spam-bot automation figures that answer out, you can very easily, and quickly change your question in the same way.

Example: Maybe your question will be, "What's the 1st word of the 3rd paragraph below in the User Agreement?" People can easily see that starts with an "N" and so forth, which is what they'll type for the answer.

In rotation, you can also use both of those questions at the same time to add another level of protection from anti-spam bot automation. Make sense?

By the way, your verification code is easy to read, and because there are other ways to stop spam-bots cold as I suggested above, I think you should keep it that way.

Interestingly, you may not even need to use that validation image at all if what I suggested you do with Derek's Anti-Spam Question mod is implemented.

Whatever you end up doing, please let us know so that other admins can follow your lead to stop spam-bots cold. Thanks.

Edited:

In our forum, simply because of ggn's anti-spam hack, we have open registration without approvals. We even allow guest posting.

« Last Edit: Apr 18th, 2013 at 4:20pm by Bill Myers »

Morning, noon, or night, have a great one!

Note: Like most others, this forum doesn't allow us to freely edit our posts or topics to make corrections as needed, so please remember to look for subsequent posts if you see any mistakes or outdated information. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks for this modified RegistrationLog.pl file (I used the second one, as I'm still on 2.5AE). It's a big help.

Reason for registering is now showing on "not yet validated" applications, but not on "awaiting approval" members. However, it's still very useful - getting hit with so many spammers that genuine applications are getting lost in the noise.